Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath

(MIT Press, 2023)

Reviewed by Alex Bardy

Here’s a book that was always going to be ‘up my alley’, especially as it comprehensively covers the earliest generation of roleplaying games back when they really began to gain popularity and momentum here in the UK. This is what I’ve always considered ‘my RPG generation’, so to speak, and it’s a time in which magazines like White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, The Space Gamer, Different Worlds, Challenge, Travellers’ Digest, and untold fanzines flooded the market and helped inspire a generation of gamers and wordsmiths, myself included.

For those readers wondering just who Stu Horvath is, may I direct you to the www.vintagerpg.com website—it’s an extremely pleasant, tidy little corner of the internet in which Stu regularly talks about his massive collection of historic tabletop RPG goodies, alongside a thorough appreciation of classic comic/RPG art (mostly pre-millennial). It’s also the home of the Vintage RPG Podcast, a weekly podcast Stu hosts with John McGuire, and a great listen, too!

So, what’s with the fancy title, then? Well, that’s a tough one, but since reading this feels like an extremely joyous and bountiful jaunt through Stu’s massive collection of RPG box sets, books, scenarios, campaigns, and more, all handily separated into different decades…well, it seems quite an apt summary, really!

Not only does Stu Horvath comprehensively cover the earliest generation of roleplaying games as they began to garner attention and momentum here in the UK but takes the reader on a guided wander through time, right up to the more recent worlds of map-making ‘freestyle’ RPGs/zines, Mörk Borg and indeed, the revival of OSR (Old School Rules) systems.

Everything in here is given relevant historical context (and opinion), whether he’s talking about the author, the publisher, or the industry at large, and carries personal reflection on what some of these items meant to him and others at the time. It’s quite an inspirational, calming read for the most part, and everything feels like it has a place, with the author quick to explore some diverse avenues whilst still keeping his focus squarely on the items in question, irrespective of whether he’s covering Champions: The Super Hero Roleplaying Game, or looking at the Thieves’ World campaign setting…

“the first fantasy anthology to embrace the notion of a shared world. It was conceived by Robert Lynn Asprin, Lynn Abbey, and Gordon R. Dickinson in 1978. Since world building acted as the most significant hurdle to writing fantasy fiction, why not provide authors with a ready-made world in which to tell their stories? Those stories would, in turn, fill in the details of that world.”

Whatever your reasons for investigating this, let it be known that it’s a humongous monster of a book (400+ pages), gorgeously illustrated throughout, and packed to the rafters with fantastic art and full-colour photographs, covering some of the most iconic RPGs and RPG-related material ever released. It’s not cheap, either, so I count myself fortunate to have received an early review copy of this (albeit as a PDF only at the moment), but I’m already feeling like the physical copy would be a treasured possession, kept as a coffee table book and ready to show off at the slightest provocation…

Review from BSFA Review 23 - Download your copy here.